Tangled Yarn

Hi,
I found a terribly tangled ball of yarn at the very bottom of my yarn basket. Is there a trick to untangling it? I’d really rather not use scissors. Does that mean I’ll just have to be patient and spend a long evening on this? I’d appreciate any tips.

Hi,

try loosening it up with your fingers. Once you’ve found the beginning, you can wind it up so it becomes a new ball. Be careful not to pull too tightly on the yarn while winding, or the tangled ball will be hard to untangle. You’ll occasionally run into a knot as you go. Don’t pull it tight—instead, loosen it, for example, with a knitting needle. Then you can use the newly wound ball to untangle the knot. It does take a little patience, but it’s worth it :-).

Best regards
Christiane

It’s always such a hassle when that happens

I’ve had to use scissors a few times when I just couldn’t get any further. Yarn that’s been crocheted and unraveled multiple times is just prone to getting tangled. But when I’m left with all those little pieces afterward, it’s a shame to waste the yarn. With yarn that’s already been crocheted and unraveled multiple times, it can also happen that when you’re crocheting, you poke between the strands and can’t quite catch the yarn properly anymore—that’s when it’s time to use a different ball of yarn. You just have to make sure you catch a loose end somewhere and then, without pulling or tugging, keep freeing it up bit by bit. Piece by piece and step by step until you have more and more yarn free—and then start winding it up right away, so it doesn’t get tangled up again. For a while, I thought it might be a good idea to put balls of yarn, after removing the label, into small plastic bags that fit fairly snugly around them, so nothing can come loose or get tangled. It’s just a lot of work. If the label is still on, you normally don’t need to do that, unless the cats have gotten to it. Then the yarn usually doesn’t look very good anymore, since they pull the strands apart with their claws and stuff. But they don’t do that as often anymore.

If there are different colors tangled up together, I always try to work on them one color at a time. It’s not always possible, but it usually works pretty well.
Gently loosen everything with your fingers and then see if you can spot any yarn ends. Then work that end backwards toward freedom.
Once one color is free, move on to the next. Over time, the tangled mess thins out and it gets easier.

But once those nasty little knots are in there—which, for some reason, are much tighter than the knots you intentionally tie yourself—scissors are usually the only thing that helps. Sometimes you can still untangle them with a thin needle, but most of them are stuck tight as a rock. 

Thanks for your tips. The yarn is untangled again, though it took some time and patience.